We ignore the culturally irrelevant stuff in the Bible all the time.
But for some reason, when it comes to sexuality, we are frozen in time.
We don’t read 1 Corinthians 11 and condemn all of the long-haired men in our lives, do we?
No, we don’t…because that verse was written in a different context.
In this post, context is the magic word.
Because the Bible doesn’t actually hand us one tidy, timeless sexual ethic.
Biblical Sexuality is more complicated than that.
And when our modern interpretations are stripped of context, it’s like reading a book full of redacted pages.
The message loses meaning.
Which is why, instead of being able to answer simple questions about sexuality, church leaders say things like:
“I don’t understand it either, that’s just what the Bible says.”
But when you read the Bible with the right context, all that “confusion” clears up.
The problem for Modern Evangelicalism is that context makes all of those sex rules we were taught in Christian school feel a little less black-and-white…
And the church doesn’t love grey areas.
Especially when it comes to our most-repressed, least-explored topic…
Sex.
Let’s start with three sex topics that upend our modern Christian understanding when they’re discussed within their proper context:
Polygamy, masturbation, and fornication.
Saddle up, friends 🤠
We’ll begin with one of the most-ignored Bible sex topics out there…
1. Polygamy.
Modern Christians hear polygamy and panic, but in the Old Testament, it was casual…so many boobies, so little time.
How is that even possible?
Say it with me, “context.”
In ancient Judaism, the tribe had to survive, and their sexual ethic derived from this need.
They had a very small population, and the future was fragile, so if the family lines were going to continue, they needed to have a lot of babies.
And how do you have a lot of babies?
You impregnate as many women as possible.
What a job.
“No, please…there are too many boobies!” said none of the heterosexual Jewish men ever.
And while I’m sure these ancient Jewish men generally enjoyed the sex, it was also their duty.
Meaning, they probably weren’t always stoked about it.
Either way, the sex these ancient people were having wasn’t just personal.
Sex was tribal and economic.
It was a matter of survival, making their bedroom activities a communal topic.
And if you’re thinking what I’m thinking…
Yes, Instagram LIVE would’ve been pretty SPICY 4,000 years ago.
“Omg, Ezra and Miriam didn’t lie together during her fertile period?”
“Is something wrong with his…staff?”
“Can someone go into their tent and find out what’s wrong?”
Sex was a communal topic.
Meaning that men and women could be punished for not following their society’s (very different) sex rules.
And while monogamy did exist in ancient Judaism, it wasn’t the only “right way” to be married.
Which leads me to the actual point I’m making here:
There hasn’t always been one right way to have sex.
Sex has evolved over time across cultures.
So why does the modern Christian church pretend that their sexual ethic is timeless?
Theologians argue that polygamy wasn’t God’s preferred family structure but He was understanding because this ancient society had bigger, survival-oriented fish to fry.
But God didn’t appear to be discouraging it either:
In Genesis 29–30, Jacob has multiple wives, and their children become the foundation of Israel’s tribes.
The law in Deuteronomy 21 accounts for polygamy by regulating inheritance, rivalry, and neglect within it.
In 2 Samuel 5:13, David has more than his fair share of wives and concubines (boobies), and God was a big fan of him most of the time.
The Bible is way less scandalized by polygamy than modern Christians are, but why?
Could sexual ethics be more fluid than we’ve always been taught?
*Pause for all of the Christian Karens to have a simultaneous heart attack*
And if you ask me, you’d have to be a goon to believe that these men weren’t occasionally taking more than one of their wives to bed.
We barely follow the clearest rules, what makes you think these human men wouldn’t enjoy this particular grey area?
Historically, the faithful have done way more with way less.
Which leads me to the modern implications of God turning a blind eye to this particular marital structure:
God let this arrangement slide for this group of ancient people, which makes our modern conversations about sexuality a little less black-and-white, doesn’t it?
The ancient Jewish sexual ethic was tied to reproduction, inheritance, and tribal survival which allowed polygamy to exist…
So what culturally contextual sexual ethic are we abiding by today in Modern Evangelicalism?
Great question, me.
I’d say our legalistic approach to sex is based in ignorance, sexual repression, and control, but that’s a topic for another day.
The point is that our sex rules are contextual, including the most personal of them all.
2. Masturbation.
It’s dark, you’re alone, and you’re feeling a familiar desire…
But they say that God is always watching, just not in a hot way.
When you live in the Modern Evangelical context, sex tends to be more of a moral test and less of a human expression.
And there is no greater test of our moral standing than how we handle the mostly-private matter of masturbation.
The most important thing to note before we begin:
The Bible never directly addresses masturbation the way modern church leaders do.
In fact, the Bible says WAY less about it than the church does.
And the verses they do use are usually about something else when you understand their context…magic word. 🪄
The only passage in the Bible that’s clearly about masturbation is one that many pastors run to in their time of need:
Genesis 38, the story of Onan.
And while you might assume this is a story about a young man alone in his room disappointing God, it’s actually about Levirate marriage, inheritance, a widow’s welfare, and a man refusing to give his dead brother an heir.
Complicated, right?
Onan’s sin wasn’t that he “spilled his semen on the ground.”
It was that he refused his duty to his family line because he wanted “to keep from providing offspring for his brother.”
This passage literally has nothing to do with the solo sex act you’ve come to fear.
It’s about the sex rules of Onan’s tribe. It was his duty to try to impregnate his brother’s widow, but instead?
He came all over the floor…uncool, Onan!
And if you’re thinking, “He should be allowed to choose who he impregnates! That’s a stupid rule!”
It sounds absurd to you, but back then, it was the Law.
Modern Evangelicalism has its own made-up sex rules that sound just as absurd out of context.
For example, when I was in my early twenties, I worked for a church that preached that women should have sex with their husbands every three days because something happens to them biologically, and it was the responsibility of wives to prevent that something from happening.
Pastor, was that something blue balls?
And if you feel weird about me asking you this question face-to-face alone in your office, perhaps having it preached from the stage is a little unsavory as well?
At this nondenominational church in 2014, we learned:
Single? No sex or masturbation = holy.
Married? No masturbation and sex every 72 hours = holy.
If this isn’t a reminder that patriarchy is still pervasive in the Modern Christian context, I’m not sure what is, because I can tell you three things with certainty:
- These church leaders never asked what happens when a woman doesn’t want sex every 72 hours.
- They didn’t discuss how masturbation fits into a marriage.
- And they certainly didn’t reflect on why a man’s “needs” are treated like theology while a woman’s desire is treated like a scheduling conflict.
But I haven’t told you the funniest (worst) part of this story yet…
The pastor of this congregation on the northside of San Antonio always had his wife preach this message.
And I say always because I heard it more than once, usually around Valentine’s Day (lol).
It can’t be anti-woman if a woman says it, right?! #InternalizedPatriarchy
Mind you, Modern Evangelicalism tries to call this “biblical clarity” using verses like 1 Corinthians 7:2–5.
They literally infer that a woman’s “marital duty” from this scripture is to have sex with her husband every 72 hours.
Go read the verse.
They’re not even close.
Especially considering this interpretation completely ignores the groundbreaking mutuality of the passage.
Within the patriarchal society in which this was written, Paul’s words are shockingly mutual.
He is saying that, in Christian marriage, husbands and wives both have authority. Not just husbands. Not just men. Both.
That level of mutuality was radical for its time.
And rather than celebrating this ancient Christian movement toward equality, my pastor’s wife used the passage to teach that I had to have sex on a schedule or I wasn’t doing my wifely duty.
Not biblical clarity.
A newfangled loophole for controlling women’s bodies.
At the same time, Modern pastors use Matthew 5:27–28 to discuss masturbation.
But this passage sits in a section of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus keeps moving the conversation from outward rule-keeping to inward posture.
A context that’s critical to understanding the point Jesus is making in these verses.
It begins with, “You shall not commit adultery,” and then intensifies that command by saying that the man who looks at a woman “with lust” has already committed adultery in his heart.
But Jesus isn’t giving a standalone lesson on private sexual release, he’s talking about locating the roots of adultery in desire before the act occurs.
That matters because masturbation and adultery are not the same category in the text.
In the Bible, adultery is about violating a relational covenant, and in a world where women were property, it could also lead to women being violated, discarded, and left desolate by their current husbands.
Jesus was protecting women when he emphasized and re-emphasized the laws about adultery.
Pretty feminist for a first-century rabbi.
So when churches use Matthew 5:27–28 as if Jesus was secretly preaching against masturbation?
They are imposing a modern anxiety into a passage that is actually about sexualized looking, possessive desire, and the moral fantasy of taking someone who is not yours to take…
Because women were treated as property that could be taken, which would ruin their social standing while the man who started by looking at her with lust went unaffected.
The immediate context is adultery, and the larger context is Jesus challenging superficial righteousness throughout Matthew 5.
He is not making a technical statement about sexual arousal.
He’s radicalizing the commandment by showing that sin is not just behavioral but interior.
He’s saying that you don’t get to congratulate yourself for keeping the adultery rule externally if you violate it internally.
And that is a very different conversation, which leads us to Christianity’s favorite sex rule.
Thou shalt not bang it out before marriage, or…
3. Fornication.
Have you heard of it?
Just kidding, I know you have.
Because, like me, you probably spent years of your life pretending you weren’t fornicating.
The word really packs a judgmental punch, doesn’t it?
For this sex rule, let’s start with a little context, shall we fellow fornicators?
Punch.
When the New Testament was written, patriarchal marriage systems were still the norm.
Women were property that were transferred and traded.
So all of that talk about premarital sex at this time in history?
It was shaped by patriarchal systems, inheritance, and female virginity as social capital.
You couldn’t guarantee that your daughter was smart or beautiful…
But you could make sure she didn’t have sex with anyone before you traded her out, keeping her value as a possession intact—hooray!
Fornication became a thing because sex before marriage carried actual consequences.
Virginity was tied to family honor, social order, and marriage arrangements, so they wrote laws to keep the young people from doing it.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that our historical and modern obsession with virginity has roots in patriarchy.
And yet, Modern Christians (try to) follow this sex rule while simultaneously ignoring the original context of the entire concept.
In biblical societies, marriage was not just about love or personal fulfillment.
Virginity was an asset, and young men and women were monitored accordingly.
But today? Virginity has no bearing on the value of either person in the eyes of the law.
That doesn’t mean sex is meaningless, it means the ancient rationale and the modern rationale are not the same thing.
Pastors often turn to verses like 1 Corinthians 6:18 where Paul tells an ancient community to “flee from sexual immorality” to make their case.
But Paul isn’t delivering a youth-group-style “don’t have sex before marriage” message here.
The Greek word there is porneia, and it’s much broader than our modern category of premarital sex.
It refers to sexual misconduct more generally, which means Modern Christians often flatten the verse into something much narrower and more convenient than Paul actually wrote.
Apparently, the Corinthians were being influenced by a sexually chaotic Roman culture, and they were getting into some (freaky?) things that made Paul feel like he had to remind them that their bodies belong to God.
*Pauses to research ancient Roman sexual practices*
**Tries not to get turned on**
1 Corinthians 6:18 is not about an obsession with virginity, it’s about refusing a sexual ethic that disconnects the body from the soul, as if what you do physically has nothing to do with your spiritual life.
Paul wasn’t handing out purity rings.
He was making a theological argument about embodiment, integrity, and not treating sex like it’s spiritually irrelevant.
Things that I would argue are still pretty important today.
So rather than reading these passages out of context and making up legalistic, black-and-white sex rules for everyone to follow…
Wouldn’t it be better to learn from thousands of years of wisdom around sexual ethics that the Bible does have to offer?
Wouldn’t it be more helpful to approach topics of sexuality with more nuance and curiosity?
We have so much left to learn on the topic of sexuality, especially as it pertains to religion and spirituality.
But if you’d prefer to keep monitoring whether or not that attractive woman over there is giving her boyfriend a hand job, I can’t stop you.
Although, I have a few guesses as to why you’d prefer that option too 😉